Installation Choices and Platforms

As we mentioned before, you’ll need MySQL, the Apache web server, PHP, and Perl for this book. How you choose to install these depends on what you want to do, how confident you are in using your operating system environment, and the level of privileges you have on your system. If you’re planning to use the installation for learning and development only, and not for a production site, then you have greater choice, and you need not be so concerned about security and performance. We’ll describe the most common ways to install the software you need.

You can find the ready-to-use MySQL programs (known as binaries) on the MySQL AB web site and on Linux installation CDs and web sites. You can also download the source code for MySQL from the MySQL AB web site and prepare, or compile, the executable programs yourself. By doing the compiling yourself, you ensure that you have the most up-to-date version of the software, and you can optimize the compiler output for your particular needs. The MySQL manual says that you can get a performance increase of up to 30 percent if you compile the code with the ideal settings for your environment. However, rolling your own installation from source code can also be a tedious and error-prone process, so we suggest that you stick with the ready-made binaries unless you’re experienced and really need to squeeze every ounce of performance from your server. Compiling from source under Windows and Mac OS X is even more involved, ...

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